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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • I know this is c/Privacy, but I use an iCloud Secure Video camera for the doorbell. Logitech Circle Doorbell, no sign in or video sent to Logitech, just processed by my Apple TV on network and uploaded securely to iCloud, where it’s stored E2EE.

    I’m technically proficient enough that I should be doing something better, but when non-tech friends ask what home camera system is private, it’s really the only one I can recommend as “good enough.”


  • I’m a huge sci-fi nerd, and I love the idea of exploring the solar system and galaxy. However, everyone I meet who actually talks about it is also so credulous about terraforming and mining and colonizing. It’s an outrageously stupid waste of resources and mental energy and I have such little respect for these people.


  • Jesus, I would love to see the world as simply as you do. You are literally going to avoid engaging with or thinking about every single point and reduce it to “Russia bad, NATO good?” You really see zero nuance in the history of NATO, its conception, its expansion, and the power it has? Does it not give you even a little pause? If not NATO, what about the world leaders who wield it?

    I’m not trying to be an “intellectual,” but there is some level of intelligence or curiosity necessary for these conversations. If you reduce conflict around the world to some Marvel-esque “bad guy invades because he’s evil” scenario and never stop to ask who created the bad guy, you are never going to be able to understand human conflict or contribute to the avoidance of it.


  • Just breathe. This is such a typical, hyperventilating response. The critique here is not that the West “made” Russia invade Ukraine and only Russian sympathizers are saying that. The critique is of Western diplomacy over the last 30 years that directly contributed to the tensions in the region. The critique is that when the Warsaw Pact dissolved and Russia was at its weakest, the commitment by the West to also disarm and cease expansion militarily into former USSR territory should have been upheld. It’s the idea that unity and peace in the region should have been primary goal, not the liberalization of former USSR territories via NATO membership.

    What exactly are you denying as “true?” You seem to have interpreted my comment as saying “Russia invaded Ukraine because of one singular thing the West did.” Well of course that’s not true, but that’s also not what I said. There isn’t one thing that Russia invaded Ukraine over. It’s a mix of national desperation, a psychotic despot, and regional tensions that made for an easy target. My only contention here is that Western diplomacy failed in Eastern Europe and a different approach would have had a different outcome. Diplomacy is a very long game. This isn’t a “hindsight is 20/20” issue, either. This strategy of military expansion for three decades despite Russia’s protests has been widely criticized.

    You don’t have to agree with Russian interests here (I certainly don’t,) but you seem to be having a hard time grasping the concept and purpose of international diplomacy and separating it from your own political views. The purpose of a diplomatic relationship should be to advance the goals which benefit the citizens of one’s own country, while working within the constraints of a given political landscape, and to advance the good of all nations where possible, not proselytize liberal democracy via military expansion. Why don’t you tell me what you think the benefit of NATO expansion post-Cold War was for the citizens of the West? How did that benefit the citizens of my nation, the USA? From where I’m sitting, it didn’t. It seems more like a needless expansion of military power by the West despite prior commitments and despite the fact that it increased tensions with Russia and jeopardized peace in the region. Don’t forget that this expansion was spearheaded by the USA, not the nations that volunteered to join. Spearheaded by a nation that has maintained its superpower status by being involved in and often instigating every major conflict for the past 80 years. Now Western Leftists are suddenly going to forget that and give them a pass because Russian sympathizers are using it as an inconvenient talking point?

    I am 100% for supporting Ukraine in this war. That should have been clear by my comment, but somehow you decided I was instead promoting the rape of innocent children. However, I also believe that after this is all over, there should be a healthy discussion about how we got here in the first place. The most absurd thing is that everything I am saying would have been widely accepted as fact by Liberals prior to the Ukraine invasion. “Western powers, particularly the USA, love destabilizing and exerting control over other weaker nations, even when they pose no threat.” Now that Russia finally did the horrible thing everyone knew they might do, this is now somehow a “pro-Russia” position to hold. It’s ridiculous.


  • I’m sorry, but the greatest stupidity I’ve seen from the Left during the course of this war is the complete abandonment of the belief in US accountability for foreign conflict and destabilization, which was so common in discussion before the war. Was it just more convenient for us then?

    Putin is a vile human being and Russia is an insecure, inept power. The invasion was a crime, and a horrific one. That does NOT absolve the US from responsibility for the regional instability that led to this war. In fact, we spearheaded and encouraged it. It is clear by our foreign policy that our leaders wanted this war.

    And now we are letting Russian sympathizers use it as a talking point and we have no rebuttal because we refuse to accept it as truth. It’s a massive own goal and reveals so much of liberal discourse in this nation to be ignorant, self serving drivel that can be abandoned as quickly as conservatives can abandon their “values.” It is disgusting.

    No idea what channel this is, but I searched for a summary of the last 30 years of our diplomacy and NATO expansion and found it. I agree with everything said and it is all historical fact.


  • Exactly, and that’s why the response has been so negative. Every instance that federates with another stores a complete copy of the posts and comments from every federated user.

    If the majority of instances do not defederate from a Meta instance, that Instance will inevitably become the primary destination for discussion, even between and by non Meta-Instance based users, just because the communities in that Instance will be so large and active. And even if they don’t, Meta Instance will have a stored copy of every community whose Instance is federated.

    Meta will then have carte blanche to collect data on a huge collection of users from outside their own Instance.

    I acknowledge that they could get the same data by scraping the public Instances anyway, but still… Fuck all of that.


  • Talin, Estonia is absolutely beautiful. A hidden gem that no one talks about.

    I’m an ignorant American, so when I looked at the map I kinda figured Estonia would have some really strong Eastern European vibes, but I was shocked how Nordic/Scandinavian it was. Incredible infrastructure, extremely walkable, fascinating history as a major Baltic Sea trade route, tons of old medieval architecture…

    And the people were so friendly! The language is beautiful, the education system is top notch, they have a great national parks system, they’ve pumped out a ton of tech startups, they’re vehemently anti-Soviet (I love that they celebrate their Independence from Russia beginning in 1920 and consider the Soviet years an occupation). The topography and flora is really beautiful. Silent forests covered in pine needles, bogs, lakes, rivers and a gorgeous coastline.

    It’s just the coolest place and I wish more people visited.

    Edit: Oh, and Pub Kompressor serves the best damn pancakes/crepes I’ve ever had.


  • (@supernovae@readit.buzz replying to myself because replying to your comment was bugged, couldn’t post)…

    I hear what you are saying. However, the Fediverse intentionally puts a lot of control into the hands of whoever is running the Instance. I, for one, do believe that the Beehaw Admins want Beehaw to be federated with as many Instances as possible. It’s very clear from their Rules and About posts though, that controlling and curating the atmosphere within this Instance is the #1 priority, and access to content for their own members is a high but secondary priority. They also did not want or ask to be such a huge destination for accounts in the Fediverse. One of the reasons I believe there are so many communities here is because Beehaw is an option for folks who want a safe and controlled platform with a broad range of topics, with discussion that fits a certain community culture that Beehaw espouses. Whether those communities are the largest or most active is not a motivating factor in their creation.

    Beehaw admins seem to be placing the health of their own communities and members above the “greater good” of the Fediverse, which is precisely the kind of decision the Fediverse empowers them to make. They even said that, if necessary, they would move to a whitelist model for Federation. So no, the system will not “continue to be overwhelmed,” because the Admins have been very clear that they will take steps as drastic as necessary to maintain the community and culture they are attempting to build. That’s an entirely legitimate use for Fediverse Instances, even if it rubs many people (myself included) the wrong way.

    For what it’s worth, I have another account on lemmy.dbzer0 and another much smaller Instance which have much more focused communities and open Federation, which embodies a more typical or expected Fediverse user experience. I plan to stick around Lemmy/KBin for the next year or so and watch all this play out. It’s still very early days and these things will work themselves out.


  • Details. Basically, there are four people running Beehaw and trying to moderate. Beehaw is not a Reddit replacement, nor is it a troll/free speech friendly place, by design. The intent is for Beehaw to be an open, but curated, instance. That’s why there is a sign up process.

    Those two instances are both large and open sign up enabled, Lemmy today has extremely weak moderation tools compared to Reddit, there’s been a massive influx of traffic and Reddit users, and those two Instances are the place where many trolls are landing.

    It’s temporary, but today the tools and infrastructure are not in place to maintain both open fed with these Instances and preserve the Beehaw identity.


  • There’s no way those specs are right. Their games are notoriously CPU dependent, I refuse to believe a R5 3600 can get stable 60fps gameplay out of this engine but a 6700xt cannot.

    But if they’re right, there’s gonna be a lot of complaints surrounding optimization around launch, and the 30fps BS on console will make a lot more sense.

    Edit: In fact, your GPU does meet recommended spec, because it outperforms the “recommended” 2080 in every benchmark I’ve seen, and has 50% more VRAM. Ignore this garbage, wait for reviews.


  • HiT3k@beehaw.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlnull
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    1 year ago

    I like it today. Depends on how judicious mods are with bans. If there’s a genuine threat of being banned for not be(e)ing nice, it may not matter. That said, I think that if these communities ever reach the size of something like Reddit, downvotes may actually have a place.


  • Exactly. The issue with TikTok isn’t that it’s somehow inherently less trustworthy, it’s that it’s so aggressively algorithmic. I use it (mostly because my SO sends me comedy and pet videos), and my algorithm reflects my interests and my tolerance for bullshit, which is little to none. The misinformation on TikTok is fed to people with an appetite for it. That’s dangerous, yes, but these people already had horrible media literacy, and TikTok is a platform that allows creators to prey on that, even if the algorithm is “neutral.”



  • What I don’t understand is why there are SO many missing comments when reading threads in one instance from another instance. For example, the top “Hot” post on Fedia right now is a post about community fragmentation on Lemmy. When viewed from Fedia, it has 8 comments, but when view within the source Lemmy instance, it has 40.

    This is an issue I’ve seen in every instance on both Lemmy and KBin and it’s a huge issue. One of the main reasons I joined Beehaw. In fact, Beehaw shows more comments than even the NATIVE Lemmy instance, at 57!